Palazzo Ajutamicristo

In the heart of Palermo historical centre, in the throbbing heart of the Arab quarter of the “Kalsa”, a short walk from the most significant monuments of the city and excellently connected by all means of transport – in a noble palace of enormous historic and artistic importance, with two awesome, intimate and secret courtyards rich in exotic palms, oleanders, banana trees and Sicilian scents, in which admirable synthesis coexist Catalan influences, tosco-Lombardi elements and indigenous forms – stands in all its splendor Ajutamicristo Palace, a residence symbol of history and culture.

Palazzo Ajutamicristo, was wanted by William Ajutamicristo, a skilled and wealthy merchant of Pisan origins transplanted to Sicily, the most powerful businessman of Palermo, holder of the bench of King Ferdinand the Catholic for every financial transaction between the Reign of Sicily and Italy.

Around 1490 the ambitious banker wanted to “petrify” his considerable fortunes by building a sumptuous “Domus Magna” that had to overcome in magnificence and elegance every other palace in the city and also had to emphasize the prestige, economic power and social role of his client. For the realization of his grandiose project he turned to one of the most gifted architects of the time, Matteo Carnelivari from Noto, already famous for having worked in several cities of the Reign.

The great architect worked at the Ajutamicristo Palace for three years, trying to bring to completion the grandiose premises of the sumptuous mansion that was to be of great size and architectural dignity. The finesse of the architecture that Carnalivari realized in this palace, but also in the Abatellis palace, would have been destined to remain in the history of Sicilian architecture of the 15th Century as original transitional works. In fact, the architect in these two palaces redesigns and reworks the Gothic-Catalan forms integrating them with a new concept of spatiality, typically Renaissance, a real novelty in the architectural language of the time in Palermo. The building, designed with a central core embattled in the Ghibelline style, and two lateral bodies, was decidedly medieval in his general lay-out characterized by the use of the living stone, the lowered arches with adjective squid and ogivalic arches.

In the facade there were three orders of facades of different shapes that have arrived to us completely transformed, at the main floor there were beautiful single lancet windows, monophores, then replaced by balconies supported by sturdy stone shelves of Baroque taste, of which however there remains an evident trace, even of the original windows of the third floor only one has reached us in the original version.

The carved stoneportal, with a large, lowered arch with vibrant moldings, is certainly the best-known element of the facade, designed by Grisafi when Carnalivari had left the city.  It is surmounted in the center by a rumble with the heraldic symbols of the Ajutamicristo House.

But the most valuable part, the most intact and less degraded of the surviving construction, must be sought in the internal porch with double overlapping loggia, present in the second courtyard, where we find lowered arches and adjective squires resting on piedritti, at the first order, while in the second there are ogivalic arches with pronounced concentric moldings that rest on marble columns bearing the arms of Guglielmo Ajutamicristo in the capitals. It is accessed from an entrance where on the right we find the 17th-century staircase that constitutes access to the main floor, and on the left a newsstand with a marble simulacrum of the Virgin.

In the second half of the 18th century, Don Giovanni Aloisio Moncada, ninth Prince of Paternò, commissioned the architect  Venanzio Marvuglia  for a total reconfiguration of the Palace, annexing a new building for the construction of a large ballroom. The interior decoration was entrusted to the painters Benedetto Cotardi and Giuseppe Crestadoro (pupil of Vito D’Anna) who frescoed the ceiling of the great hall of honor, (made by Andrea Gigante) with a pompous allegory depicting “the glory of the virtuous Prince“. In those same years Don Aloisio expanded the beautiful garden located behind the palace, a wonderful villa of delights known as “the flora of Caltanissetta” (the Moncadas were also Counts of Caltanissetta) which was opened exceptionally to the public at certain hours of the day. At the end of the nineteenth century part of the palace was sold by the Moncada Family to the Calefati Barons of Canalotti, and the other to the Tasca family, who made inside a cycle of decorations in the Pompeian style.

The Tascas in the eighties of the last century ceded their part to the Sicilian Region, while to this day the Calefati continue to reside in their property, which has preserved the beauty of the past in the interior decorations, period furnishing and floors with figurative scenes that this noble family preserves with great care.

This house, for centuries considered the most beautiful in the city, in its centuries-old existence, has hosted illustrious guests including Queen Joan of Naples, the King of Tunis Muley Hassan, The Emperor Charles V and Don Juan of Austria, winner of Lepanto (battle in which participated Marcantonio Calefati Captain of Galea, ancestor of the current owners). The wing owned by the Region currently destined for museum space, will soon become the Cultural Heritage Superintendency headquarter.